JAKARTA, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian annual retail sales in September remain indicating optimism, albeit it ticked down from that in the presiding month, a survey carried out by the central bank showed on Tuesday.
Indonesia logged a 4.8 percent growth of retail sales in September year over year, coming a little bit below a 6.1 percent in August.
The growth of sales in September was largely contributed by rising demand of clothes and fuels for automotive.
Looking at October, the retail sales is forecast to edged off slightly to 3.9 percent.
The price pressure was apt to slightly hike within the next three months year-over-year indicated by the index of price expectation of 159.3, rising from that in the previous three months.
The acceleration of the retail sales in September was in line with the ticking down of people's purchasing power indicated by the data of annualized core inflation rate, released by the national statistics bureau in the month, coming in at 2.82 percent, falling from 2.87 percent in August.
The Indonesian central bank has reshaped its estimate on this year's inflation target to 3.5 percent from its preceding projection of 2.5 to 4.5 percent.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the economy is likely to expand 5.14 percent this year as the government expects a 5.3 percent growth next year.
